Supreme Court Says You Can’t Sue the Corporation that Wrongly Marked You A Terrorist
In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court late last week barred the courthouse door to thousands of people who were wrongly marked as “potential terrorists” by credit giant TransUnion. The Court’s analysis of their “standing” —whether they were sufficiently injured to file a lawsuit—reflects a naïve view of the...
Global Law Enforcement Convention Weakens Privacy & Human Rights
The Council of Europe Cybercrime Committee's (T-CY) recent decision to approve new international rules for law enforcement access to user data without strong privacy protections is a blow for global human rights in the digital age. The final version of the draft Second Additional Protocol to the Council...
Van Buren is a Victory Against Overbroad Interpretations of the CFAA, and Protects Security Researchers
The Supreme Court’s Van Buren decision today overturned a dangerous precedent and clarified the notoriously ambiguous meaning of “exceeding authorized access” in the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the federal computer crime law that’s been misused to prosecute beneficial and important online activity. The decision is a victory...
If Not Overturned, a Bad Copyright Decision Will Lead Many Americans to Lose Internet Access
This post was co-written by EFF Legal Intern Lara EllenbergIn going after internet service providers (ISPs) for the actions of just a few of their users, Sony Music, other major record labels, and music publishing companies have found a way to cut people off of the internet based on mere...
How Your DNA—or Someone Else’s—Can Send You to Jail
Although DNA is individual to you—a “fingerprint” of your genetic code—DNA samples don’t always tell a complete story. The DNA samples used in criminal prosecutions are generally of low quality, making them particularly complicated to analyze. They are not very concentrated, not very complete, or are a mixture of multiple...
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court Rubber Stamps Mass Surveillance Under Section 702 - Again
As someone once said, “the Founders did not fight a revolution to gain the right to government agency protocols.” Well it was not just someone, it was Chief Justice John Roberts. He flatly rejected the government’s claim that agency protocols could solve the Fourth Amendment violations created by police...
Your Service Provider’s Terms of Service Shouldn’t Overrule Your Fourth Amendment Rights
Last week, EFF, ACLU, and ACLU of Minnesota filed an amicus brief in State v. Pauli, a case in the Minnesota Supreme Court, where we argue that cloud storage providers’ terms of service (TOS) can’t take away your Fourth Amendment rights. This is the first case...
Victory for Fair Use: The Supreme Court Reverses the Federal Circuit in Oracle v. Google
In a win for innovation, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that Google’s use of certain Java Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) is a lawful fair use. In doing so, the Court reversed the previous rulings by the Federal Circuit and recognized that copyright only promotes innovation and creativity when...
First Circuit Upholds First Amendment Right to Secretly Audio Record the Police
EFF applauds the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit for holding that the First Amendment protects individuals when they secretly audio record on-duty police officers. EFF filed an amicus brief in the case, Martin v. Rollins, which was brought by the ACLU of Massachusetts on behalf...
Tenth Circuit Misses Opportunity to Affirm the First Amendment Right to Record the Police
We are disappointed that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit this week dodged a critical constitutional question: whether individuals have a First Amendment right to record on-duty police officers.EFF had filed an amicus brief in the case, Frasier v. Evans, asking the court to affirm...
